has cooked?”—or, “If you let such a person touch the prepared pastry which you are about to eat, how can his touch render impure another sort of food?” But caste it is said destroys all social feelings,—we have something analogous to quote in illustration. In the —th regiment, now in India, there are, or were not long ago, two brothers, one a commissioned officer, the other in the ranks: should these be found dining together, the former would be liable to be dismissed the service, although the rule would not, probably, be pushed to such an extreme. The commissioned officer was himself formerly in the ranks, and, of course, lived in social intercourse with his brother, which, by the strict rules of the service, he must renounce on receiving his commission. What are all these peculiarities which govern the intercourse of the different ranks and classes with one another among us, but caste? Yet, although they may have some portion of evil, they are found beneficial on the whole, and society would be worse, were they abolished.
We are ready enough to taunt the Hindus with the iniquitous anomalies of their rules of caste, according to which a man may be guilty of theft and perjury, or other crime, with impunity; but if he should be found eating with a virtuous friend, he becomes an outcast. We forget how very similar our own customs are. A man may seduce his friend’s wife or sister, and follow it up by murdering his friend, without losing his place in society: a few, who would consequently be considered particular, might withdraw their countenance from him, to make up for which, some would admire the eclat he had brought upon himself; while the majority would receive him as if nothing had happened. Yet the same man would soon be excluded from society, should he be found associating with a tradesman, although the latter may be a most respectable, well-informed man! Well may the poor abused Hindus say to us, “Look at home.”
Much of caste is, as I have observed, a mere civil distinction, and, in minor points, is no more than exists in every country. It is founded on self-consequence, and a desire to exalt ourselves a little higher in the scale of the society in which we move, and this is also much the same in all countries. Complaints are
vol. II.
2 i
